Yep. Lots of snow. But it's melting. I could see spots of green grass appearing around the yard today.
When I finally got out onto the road, it was still necessary to wear a winter jacket but I did NOT wear my ski pants!
Wished I had, though, for the first few minutes. Still had to keep my hood up most of the way. Spring wind and all.
While talking to Aunt Reta on the phone this afternoon — she thought our heavy snowfall was humorous for some reason — probably because she doesn't often have to deal with snow anymore, down there in the desert heat of Arizona — she can afford to chuckle — I noticed a northern flicker in the yard. Gorgeous bird. First one I've seen this year. It didn't come to the feeders at the oaks but since the snowy weekend, the feeders are popular once again. Lots of colourful purple finches are back, too. Busy in the trees alongside juncos and redpolls and chickadees and woodpeckers and redwinged blackbirds. Yes, even redwinged blackbirds are eating outside my front window. It's so exciting. I am a hundred years old. Now you know.
In other news, my sister Karen has gotten moved into her new house on the shore of Margo Lake. I had emailed, offering to help her pack and move her kitchen over when she was ready ... but she didn't get my email. We blame her husband, who probably flipped past the email and forgot to mention it to her. Whew—I dodged a bullet there! That would've been a huge job, that kitchen. Karen has every appliance and every dish known to every culinary expert in the world, I'm sure. All crammed into a kitchen with loads of cupboards. If Karen isn't exhausted by now, she should be.
Another day of sunshine and the ice should be melted off the ravine again.
One of my favourite parts of walking is when a bird accompanies me and the dogs, and yaks at us. Today it was the northern flicker.
The geese are plain standoffish and won't stay put when I stroll by.
Poor trees, eh? The snow is so heavy, so wet.
Now, why in the hell does my browser (Chrome) all of a sudden decide not to allow popups? Out of the blue? Like it's got a mind of its own?
This is how computers are going to drive humankind crazy. Little shit like that. Did I change a setting? No. I'm hornswoggled.
Oh well, it isn't the first time.
That's it for me tonight. Over and out.
But first, Virginia Woolf:
Tues12Jan1915
The West End of London fills me with aversion: I look into motor cars & see the fat grandees inside, like portly jewels in satin cases.
Are pancakes the order of the day for Easter breakfasts? I had forgotten that until reading Joanne's entry just now. But apparently my subconscious remembered, because guess what I made this morning?
Sucre à Crème, or Caramel Sauce
Simple and quick to make, this sauce popular in Canada’s francophone provinces is delicious on ice cream and pancakes or poured over a piece of chocolate cake that hasn’t been iced.
1 c cream
1 c brown sugar
dash salt
Bring to boil over medium heat. Boil two or three minutes. Remove from heat.
Cool. Add
1 tsp vanilla
1 drop mapeline (or any maple flavouring).
Refrigerate.
Of course, I had to make pancakes to go with it.
Ms Virginia Woolf went about making breakfast in quite another way:
13Jan1915
I caused
some slight argument (with L.) this morning by trying to cook my breakfast in
bed. I believe, however, that the good sense of the proceeding will make it
prevail; that is, if I can dispose of the eggshells.
The only snow left last week was on the north side of treelines.
After a storm blew up last night, there is more snow in the yard than there's been all winter.
The geese seemed to carry on as usual, taking it all in stride.
This snowdrift in front of the house contains a glacier-blue cave.
The electricity went off before I got out of bed this morning, though Scott had time to drink a pot of coffee. A power pole had been knocked down, in the bush somewhere, and because the snow was so deep and wet it was difficult for the workers to get to it. It's been back on for an hour now; maybe it's a bit late in the day to be drinking coffee, but I might brew up a couple cups anyway.
The sky's blue again. It's been a lazy day; lots of sleeping and reading. Was tempted to complain helplessly, but Emil did it for us; his expected routine was altered and he was most unhappy about that. Especially since his dad was going to drive out from Edmonton today and, due to the local roads and poor visibility, did not. Scott wasn't able to get out of the yard with the half-ton; his brother had to drive over with a tractor and pick him up so they could put bedding straw out for the cattle.
I'm being called to the phone. Au revoir ....
Virginia Woolf:
"Fri8Jan1915
His fat
pink body always seems to me boneless & hairless like that of a gigantic
child; & his mind is the same. But there is a charm about him."
Came across this today while searching out National Film Board videos for work.
Enjoy! Besides, if you live in Saskatchewan, as I do, you don't want to be outside today anyway. Snow, sleet, rain ... we've got it all. The gravel roads are slippery; Scott almost went in the ditch a couple miles from home, and turned around and came back.
8:19a.m.
Scott comes into the bedroom to get dressed while I sit propped against “the cow,” reading Virginia’s diary. (The cow is Scott's name for a large wedge-shaped pillow covered by a fabric that looks like suede but isn't.)
I tease him a little. “Don’t make a mess,” I say, since I’ve recently shoved his piles of papers into binders and then into drawers. “You’re the laziest man I’ve ever seen,” I say, to the busiest guy I know. “Come and sit down a minute,” I say, patting the bed beside me. “I’ve got something important to tell you.” He perches there and I touch his arm and say, very gently, “It’s Thursday today. All day.”
And Virginia, on a Thursday?
Thurs7Jan1915
On the way I walked through one of the worst downpours I have ever been in. It was more like a shower bath than natural rain. My shoes squeaked so with wet as I walked up the Library that I was ashamed.
Kurt
called yesterday to say he could spend the afternoon digging a new flower bed (actually he is extending the one he dug in the fall to save my plants from the septic tank installation) in the front lawn for me. So he spent 7 hours here and got the sod half dug out
and carted away; I hope he’ll come back Sunday
and finish.
I went
out for a few minutes after every hour of my work here at the desk and took him
a pop or carried water to the tractor shed for the cats (so they aren’t forced
to go to a slough where they might be caught by a fox or coyote)
or just to say hello and see what progress was being made.
A robin spent much of the day perched on top of the
power pole in the yard, gaily chirping his “territorial song.” Click HERE to hear it. What a pleasure to open the kitchen window and listen while making supper; it begins to seem even more like spring is here to stay, although snow is forecast for the weekend.
Today the wind is cold, but the sun's shining.
And what was Virginia Woolf up to on a Wednesday, you say?
Virginia with her husband Leonard
"Wed6Jan1915
L. went
off at 10 a.m. to give his second lecture at Hampstead. The first was a great
success, as I knew it would be. He finds the women much more intelligent than
the men; in some ways too intelligent, & apt on that account, not to see
the real point.
Now I
have to decide whether I shall go up again, to a party at Gordon Sqre, where
the Aranyis are playing. On the one hand, I shirk the dressing & the
journey; on the other I know that with the first chink of light in the hall
& chatter of voices I should become intoxicated, & determine that life
held nothing comparable to a party."
Dipping into the first Virginia Woolf diary takes me back to my earlier reading of it, in
the large and bright master bedroom of the house we rented in Kelowna during Mom’s
last months alive in 2005. I remember the painful clarity of the time, and the
numbness or frozenness in the days following her death.
On Tues5Jan1915, Virginia writes:
"I dislike
the sight of women shopping. They take it so seriously."
But doesn't it LOOK great??
I did say I wanted to find some smoothie recipes to help get more vegetables down my neck, didn't I? Well, here's my first attempt. It's a bit gagworthy ... er, I mean perhaps it will take some time to acquire a taste for it, and I don't think I'm going to take that time. It's not that bad ... I'll finish the rest of this glassful (maybe), but what's left in the blender ... doubt it. It's actually very flavourful and oh so GOOD for you!
Spinach and Carrot Supreme Smoothie Recipe
(found somewhere on the internet)
(serves 2)
2 cups chopped fresh spinach
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup apple juice
4 ice cubes
Pour the apple juice into a blender, add the chopped spinach and process
until blended. Next add the chopped carrots and mix well, then add the ice
cubes and more juice if necessary. Mix until a 'smoothish' consistency.
Seen on Main Street: lower frame covers up Saskatchewan's descriptive "Land of Living Skies"
In recent days there has been a lot of media coverage about the provincial government's new budget, which will cut out the Saskatchewan Film tax credit and effectively cripple a growing local industry that as a resident of this province I've been rather proud of.
Way to go, provincial government!
If you follow this link, you can watch clips from a number of films that have been made here in Saskatchewan:
You may be surprised at the quantity — and quality, for a relatively fledgling industry.
And if you follow this next one, you will be given reasons to consider why the film industry here has and should continue to be publicly subsidized, just as it is in every other province in this country: click here.
Want to see the whole picture? The Canadian film industry has been fighting to survive in the shadow of the Goliath that is the American film industry ever since the dawn of Hollywood. "The History of Film in Canada," an article at The Canadian Encyclopedia, explains how American film has edged out Canadian-made movies and television for such a long time. It's not that Americans make better films; it's that American interests have dictated the terms of distribution and they've had the money to put behind the marketing of their products. Click here.
The Quebec portion of the article, which comes at the end, is not quite up to date (that's in progress), but Quebecers support their film industry by going to see movies made in Quebec: films made in the mostly francophone province, due to their language, have a built-in audience with a lot less competition for viewers.
Walked yesterday to the south corner of our road and, having turned around, relieved to finally have the strong wind at my back, I noticed a large dark patch in the trees about 150 feet away. Looking more closely, the figure of a cow moose came clear; she was standing still, watching me. I stopped and reached for the camera in my pocket, and when I did so she ambled away.
I was disappointed, but also happy and grateful to have seen her.
So you only get a picture of the dogs.
And a perverted cultural reference in the title that perhaps most of you won't "get" ... I come up with these a lot and many people just look at me, wondering what I'm on about. (Queen, anyone? Anyone? I think this little snippet of the song came to me because yesterday on Facebook I watched a video of a drunken man in the back of a police car, singing that particular Queen song at the top of his lungs, out of tune. Thank you Colin Mochrie for sharing that; it was a laugh). Yes I "shared" it -- if you're not connected to me on FB yet, look me up: this should help you find the right one, for there are a thousand of us with the same name.
I’ve been up since before six — went to bed about 9:30 last night, tired, but that didn't mean I could fall asleep for several hours — managed to hear some of Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap on CBC radio in between dozings, and was as usual impressed by the way he points out things I’ve never heard before in songs, giving me a whole new appreciation for the artistry of musicians. His is truly a great show. If you've never listened to it, git thee hence.
Unfortunately the link to the show's page isn't going where it ought; instead it goes to the general CBC Music page, which is something new (and supposedly wonderful; haven't checked it out yet). But if you can find them, many of Bachman's shows are available by podcast somewhere on the CBC website. Meanwhile you can listen to CBC Radio One, which hosts the two-hour show early on Saturday nights, online. It also comes on Radio Two and Sirius satellite; you'll have to poke around. Here's something to get you started: click here. And, the show replays on Friday nights.
This past week I managed to put in 25 hours of work, and now will try not to do any over the weekend, to give myself a “real” break from it so that I don’t feel as if I’m “always” working, when in fact 25 hours a week is not “always” working, I know, but …
Instead this morning I lounged in bed with two or three cups of coffee, reading the preface to the first volume of Virginia Woolf’s diary and making a foray into her earliest entries. Then I made myself a smoothie (two, actually; one is never enough when they’re so delicious) and tidied the countertop, and folded the throws that were bunched up on the couch, and straightened the blanket on the loveseat. I got out the ingredients for a batch of bread and took the frozen vegetable water from the freezer to thaw. And now here I sit, having set the timer for one hour so that I don’t end up in front of this screen continuously till noon and then wonder where the morning went.
I hope to make bran muffins and granola this weekend, too; maybe even today. These are what I'll live on for the coming week, if I'm successful.
Today I spent five hours searching the web for images of refugees to Canada from all over the world. In the course of these travels I naturally skimmed through many pages of history and got edumacated, and that's fine, but even better than that is finding ridiculous things like the statement above.
People are so crazy, it's a constant wonderment. The things they say!
Passed on my walk; ice circles frozen around fenceposts. Click to enlarge.
I paid a man $120 to turn up lawn in the front yard, wheelbarrow black soil to it, make a flower bed, and move some rosebushes and perennials into it. That was in the fall right before the septic tank got dug in, and it was touch and go whether the flowers would be moved in time. I had to get them out of there, or see them torn up by a monstrous machine.
Scott said, “Well, could you replace those bushes and perennials for that price?”
Maybe I could, and it would have relieved some of the pressure I felt about getting them moved — if only I didn’t actually care about the plants themselves. I care about each plant and want to see it in a safe place, not dug up, or tilled under when Scott turns the flower garden behind the house into lawn this summer. It’s not just the cost of replacing plants that concerned me; it's the life of the plant itself.
There are many more plants to be moved this spring, so I'll need to enlarge the flowerbed we made last fall.
Now I’m looking at my flowers back there — what a treat to see them again, even just their dry brown stems — without the snowy blanket — and then at the space in the front yard and figuring out the best places to put them. Because of course I want to save every one; not even one ubiquitous shasta daisy shall be ploughed under on my watch, if I can find a new location for it.
I say that now. When I'm buried under an avalanche of dirt I may say to hell with it. But that's unlikely.
Look who made her grand entrance in the wee hours of this morning! Little Brielle Aspen.
She is a granddaughter to Joanne Bohl and a daughter to Joanne's own baby, Erin; see the happy grandma's entry here: Out Margo Way.
Scott carries Emil's bags to the door for him on a recent weekend
8:53pm
“Mom, I think I’d rather come back home with you.”
That’s what Emil said as I was leaving him in the entryway of his group home in town.
I’d told him that instead of phoning me every night as he's been doing, I’d like him to call on Tuesday and Thursday only (unless there is a particular reason he needs to talk to me) and that if, as he claims, he is missing me during the week, I will drive in on Wednesday to visit with him or take him out for a drive.
“Let’s give that a try,” I said, and he repeated the entire plan 45 times, as he does when there is even the slightest change in routine, before I got out the door. A delaying tactic.
He also threw in that since his ears are still plugged, maybe they’re going to stay that way for the rest of his life, and “I think I’m not really enjoying life very much,” he added.
"I'd say you're enjoying your life quite a bit," was my response. I'm not buying the might-as-well-shoot-me thing he's been giving me lately, due to his plugged ears. Which have been plugged for months, so I don't blame him; but as far as we and the doctors and specialists know, he just has to wait it out.
As with a young child, parting from a parent is easier if it’s not drawn out. What works best is if I remain in the vehicle and Scott carries Emil’s backpack and shoebag to the door for him. Tonight we didn’t have that option, as Scott was asnooze on the living room couch, watching the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie whenever his own snoring woke him for a few moments. Emil and I headed for town alone.
Finally after reassuring him 45 times that he’d heard me correctly about the new phoning schedule, and of course chatting with the other residents (they’re all in their pyjamas; one communicates mostly with sign language of a sort and loves Bonanza and always takes my hand and leads me to his room to show me that he’s got it paused on his TV; one tells me with a happy glow that she has a new boyfriend 20 years older than herself; one shows me a beaded red bracelet on her wrist and hugs the heck out of me; another asks, as always, if I’m going home and where’s my van and where’s my husband? They’re a predictable, delightful bunch and I have fun with them), I turned away from my 23-year-old son’s somewhat sad face and went out the door feeling a little bit sad, myself, that he isn’t thrilled to be there anymore. Like he was for the first year.
